AST SpaceMobile Opens UK Headquarters in Leicester, England

The Space Park at Leicester, England. (Photo by AST SpaceMobile)

Space-based cellular broadband network AST SpaceMobile‘s U.K. business opened a new headquarters on Friday at the Space Park complex in Leicester, England.

The new headquarters is part of Leicester’s $138.8 million (100 million pound) research and manufacturing hub for local space-related high-tech companies.

“Our Space Park Leicester office will have business development, engineering and regulatory team members working to support the progress and manufacturing of critical subsystems for the SpaceMobile constellation,” said Steve Gibson, managing director of AST SpaceMobile UK.

AST is developing a planned space-based mobile network in partnership with Vodafone and hopes to launch service by the end of 2023. In April, AST SpaceMobile became of the first of a new wave of space companies to go public through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). It combined with New Providence Acquisition Corp. and now trades on the Nasdaq exchange under the ticker symbols ASTS and ASTSW, respectively.

The transaction yielded more than $462 million in gross proceeds, between New Providence Acquisition Corp.’s $232 million of cash held in trust and a $230 million fully committed common stock private placement investment (PIPE) led by Rakuten, Vodafone, American Tower, and UBS O’Connor.

This month, the company also signed an MoU with Smart Communications to bring its space-based cellular broadband network to customers in the Philippines

AST’s main corporate headquarters is in Midland, Texas, and includes a 85,000 square-foot satellite assembly, integrating and testing facility.